David Garforth

Global Trust Certification/part of SAI Global

Dave joined SAI Global as Senior Seafood Consultant in May 2012. His career has traversed many aspects of the seafood sector, including seafood trade, fishery compliance, fish feed and nutrition, seafood quality management, seafood research and business development. His interest in seafood started pre-high school, fishing the coasts and rivers near his home where he developed a passion for fish and all things marine. After a degree in fishery science, Dave worked as a fishery enforcement officer and in seafood processing before returning to further his education and completed a Masters’ Degree in Aquaculture Science. His early career spanned, aquaculture research, seafood trade, fish feed manufacturing and fish standards development. The creation of a series of Industry Codes of Best Practice working at the Irish Fisheries Board; these later became fully operational quality assurance schemes, which form the National Seafood Quality Standards in place today- and certified by SAI Global today. For the last 10 years, Dave has been engaged in expanding the seafood certification and related services at SAI Global for clients in EMEA, North America and Asia. Key Standards include; Marine Stewardship Council, Aquaculture Stewardship Council, FAO based Responsible Fisheries Management, Responsible Supply and Fishing Standards and other sector specific programmes. Dave is based at SAI Global’s seafood office in Dundalk, Ireland.

SESSIONS:

Third party certification has been a feature of ‘food businesses’ for decades and seafood has been no exception. Standards and certification build around compliance in matters such as food safety, hygiene, health and safety, quality systems etc. are completely established. Within the last 10-15 years and for very real reasons; attention has focused on the certification of sustainability of global fisheries. There has been considerable debate. I recall presentations exactly 10 years ago at the WSC in Ireland discussing this theme. ‘Standards andCertification had covered the pre-requisites, the compliance areas – the essentials of being able to do business and it was time to consider the longer-term status of global fish stocks and how ‘good practices in fisheries management’ could be recognised. 10 years later, the presence of both international and regional certifications for ‘sustainable or responsible fisheries management is now the norm and processes such as the Global Seafood Sustainability Imitative (GSSI) will largely resolve the debate of which standard is better. This presentation will focus on the third party certification models and activities in the Icelandic Responsible Fisheries Management Certification Programme and provide examples of fishery certifications, key clauses and their measurement. (196 words).

Highlighted outcomes from the World Seafood Congress in Reykjavík Iceland 2017 -Based on inputs from Matis experts and chairs of sessions at the World Seafood Congress Increased international cooperation within the Blue Bioeconomy is key to sustainable use of the world’s aquatic resources for food production and other value creation as well as an improved […]

The Iceland Responsible Fisheries programme is a voluntary marketing tool serving the Icelandic fishing industry and the value chain in whole. The project was launched in 2008 and it includes promotion of origin and certification of Icelandic fisheries. The IRF Foundation (IRFF) owns the programme and takes care of the operation and certification, but Promote […]